Narrative: Designed by America's pre-eminent architectural firm, McKim, Mead & White, McKelvy House, or "Oakhurst" as it was originally named, was built in 1888 as a wedding present from John Eyerman, a Lafayette college graduate and faculty member, to his bride Lucy Maxwell. College architecture historian, Robert Mattison, writes in Lafayette College Architecture: in Context that the house "exemplifies Stick and Shingle architecture. Its overwhelming scale is belied by its asymmetrical design and by its varied use of materials--dark and light granite, shingles and slate. The granite is deliberately uneven to give the house an earthy and homemade feeling, like a Yankee stone wall." Other signature McKim, Mead & White features include elaborate wood paneling, a central hearth, and a circular porch pavilion. The house, well sited on three acres overlooking the Delaware River, once boasted formal Italian gardens with a reflecting pool. In 1914, the family of Francis G. McKelvey, a Lafayette college trustee, purchased the property and made extensive additions and several alterations. Lafayette College acquired the three-story, 22-room residence in 1960 and made it the home of the newly-formed College Scholars society, a program for academically talented students chosen by the faculty to live and work in the intellectual environment fostered in the house.